“My task, which I am trying to achieve, is, by the power of the
written word to make you hear, to make you feel — it is before all,
to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything.”
Joseph Conrad
Enticing readers to enter the world you create can be challenging. One of the best tools you have at your command is color — the vividness or variety of your words. Anecdotes, similes, and metaphors — these can all add richness and texture to your writing. As Jack Hart notes in A Writer’s Coach, readers want to be rewarded for the time and effort they devote to an author’s work. One way to reward them, says Hart, is to seed your story with “nuggets that give pleasure. Think of them as the chips in a chocolate-chip cookie.”
Color offers a reader the joy of discovery; an unexpected comparison, an unusual modifier, or a detail that reveals much more than meets the eye — these are all pleasure-giving nuggets that engage and entrance readers and keep them moving along with you through your story.
Raymond Chandler, who created the classic detective Philip Marlowe, used to write on half sheets of paper. His self-imposed goal was to create “a little bit of magic” on each half sheet That’s a form of color. Jack Hart devotes a whole chapter to adding color to writing. A few tips:
• Pick three details: Capture your characters by describing three details that define who they are in revealing and insightful ways.
• Sharpen your similes: Arresting, unusual comparisons spice up prose. Hemingway and Fitzgerald honed their descriptive skills by picking out random objects and then creating comparisons for them.
• Use color carefully: “Metaphors, similes, and other figurative devices work best when you measure them out carefully,” observes Hart. Too many weakens their power; too few makes writing seem lackluster. So sprinkle them artfully throughout your prose to add spice and snap.
Great writing tips to absorb and apply as we all write on!
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